The present invention relates to switching devices and more particularly to a sliding shuttle apparatus allowing switching between normal and emergency standby power supplies while simultaneously preventing overloading of the electrical system.
Numerous sliding switches have been provided in prior art that are adapted to include sliding switch mechanisms having a sliding actuator that touches a contactor, for example, Hou et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,552 is illustrative of such prior art. Tseng, U.S. Pat. No. 5,322,983, teaches an electrical switch having a sliding block that manually switches between two positions, on and off. Takano, U.S. Pat. No. 5,051,549, teaches a sliding switch having a movable conductor which, when in its first position in contact with a pair of elongate fixed conductors, completes an electrical circuit therebetween.
None of the prior art sliding switches address the problem of permitting only one power source to be used at any one time thereby preventing overload of an electrical system which would occur if two power sources, the normal power source and the back-up emergency power source, were inadvertently accessed simultaneously.
While these prior art switches may be suitable for the particular purpose to which they address, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present invention as hereinafter described.